Storage device manufacturers, such as makers of Solid State Drives (SSDs), include diagnostic programs and a diagnostic interface in the storage device to allow testing and diagnostics to be performed during production and after the device has shipped into the field. These diagnostic tests and commands provide the ability to modify various physical device characteristics and/or access sensitive data in a fashion not available during normal drive use and operations. Manufacturers need to limit access to this diagnostic interface to prevent malicious software from exploiting diagnostic commands to launch a broad based permanent denial of service attack on the storage devices and/or divulge confidential user information.
One prior art technique for restricting access to the diagnostic interface is to provide additional diagnostic access pins on the storage drive pin interface that are not mapped on a normal computer drive interface. A special purpose electronic circuit board must be provided that has extra pins to interface with the special diagnostic pins on the storage device. An unlock sequence may be issued on these additional pins to enter a mode where a user can issue diagnostic commands to the storage device. In this way, prior art techniques are dependent on the physical presence of the storage drive to access and a special purpose electronic circuit board.
There is a need in the art for improved solutions to provide a secure access to the diagnostic interface of a storage device.